Book Review of Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition

James Kloppenberg’s Reading Obama is a high-speed and breathless journey through over 200 years of American political history and theory which gives the work of John Dewey a place of central importance. According to its narrative, these two centuries of American thought find their natural fruition in the political career of Barack Obama. The book, through an introduction to some of the most prevalent intellectual currents in American politics (both past and present), philosophical pragmatism as embodied in the work of John Dewey and his expositors (most specifically the work of Richard J. Bernstein) and various conceptions of constitutional democracy, is intended to construct an understanding of Obama as an intellectual president best understood through his theoretical influences. Kloppenberg’s ultimate claim is that when viewed through this framework, it becomes clear that Barack Obama offers a new type of civic republican founded upon a backdrop of philosophical pragmatism. Most concretely, it is argued that Obama shows a strong awareness of conditions of uncertainty and provisionality as well as the necessity for an experimental stance in the realm of politics. Out of this complex “matrix,” Kloppenberg ultimately portrays Obama as extraordinarily sophisticated and deep in his understanding of the American tradition, ultimately realizing that “democracy in a pluralistic culture means coaxing a common good to emerge from the clash of competing individual interests” (xiv).